Mabwe nods "Yes we should go round, there'll be time enough to deal with this if we succeed in our task. If not then it nothing will be left to worry about!"

Tuari nods at Lemak, looking for trouble when they were so close to the end of their quest seemed foolish even to the Bison brave.  "I will join you Lemak when you return to cleanse this place."

Lemak raises a fist to Tuari in salute.  "Yes, brother, we'll do it together!"

Still, as they ride past the shrine, he remains alert, senses on the lookout for any active Chaos.

You steer clear of the defiled shrine, keeping an eye on it for any pursuit as you slowly and carefully pick your way over the plains, avoiding large rocks that would dump Klanth-and-utumna onto the earth.


By and by, the ruin drops out of sight and the nagging sense of oppression is left behind with it. 

You continue on your trek and the day goes by uneventfully.
Then, seeing it first as a speck, growing steadily larger as you approach, you see the tree from which you began your journey.
It is what you hear, though, that sets you on edge. 
(OOC: Lemak, Mabwe and Tuari get a listen check)
At first the sound reminds you of cicadas, or perhaps hyenas except for its continuous duration, broken up by gasps. It is a mixture of hissing, panting, snorting, wheezing... Drawing nearer,  you at last recognize it as human laughter but that is somehow very wrong.

As they move away from the ruins Mabwe speaks "I will return with you to that place to cleanse it. There is a powerful spirit within."

Later, as they near the shaman's tree and hear the sound Mabwe looks concerned "It is as the Bad Man was when I faced him, like us but wrong.

As the laugher becomes perceptible Norajia looks at the lifeless Vorrik and then the still mobile Tuari and she misses a step.

"You are still Orlanth, Tuari," she says "...whatever is happening in the world. You will find the right words."

Tuari stood up in his saddle and raised a hand to shade his eyes, searching for the source of the laughter. "I see a red flag over there" he blurts out indicating.   He looks across at Norajia and nods and smiles.

Tuari paused for a moment then holding his thrusting his lance up towards the sky called out.

"Foul slime, curse of existence, begone!
Turn your back and flee from me!
I will kill you, you are evil.
Lie and whimper before me."

At Tuari's call, the laughter stops abruptly...

After a moment's pause, though, it explodes again louder and more uncontrolled than ever.

"I guess you don't see the Five Tribes pull a dragon out of a hole in the ground every day." Norajia says.
"Not my problem" She shrugs and continues leading Modesty towards the tree.

Lemak gives a grim smile to the morokanth and another shake of his fist in acknowledgment.



Lemak reins in Lobber for a moment, particularly as Tuari has paused too, and rises from his saddle, as is this will help him understand the laughter better.  "I do not sense Chaos," he says, somewhat puzzled.  "It does not seem so unnatural to me.  Just strange..."  He kicks his high llama forward again.

Thangar frowns at the unsettling laughter, but follows along with Norajia and Lemak as they head in the direction of the laughter.
Belina follows the lead of Tuari.
As you get nearer to the tree, you see the source of the hysterics.
Half a dozen Lunar infantrymen are literally rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically. 
One of them has removed his helmet and placed it over the sandal of his left foot which he holds aloft, shaking it and giggling idiotically.
Two of them are facing each other, one crudely shaving the other's beard with his kopis, making a bit of a mess of it, his arm trembling as they both chortle about the results.
One points at Norajia and Thangar's approach, letting out a high pitched, rapid wheezing.
You notice that although they are all cackling, there is no joy in their appearance, their lips are grimacing and several have tears running down their faces.
You also notice a makeshift swing in the tree, and a figure gently swinging back and forth. From time to time one of the soldiers notices and begins laughing all the harder. 

"Looks to me more like the laughter of Hyena than of true mirth, I'd say that spirit has a hand in this perhaps and given who they are, all the better!" Mabwe says taking in the scene before him.

"I've always had a fondness for that spirit." he adds as an afterthought.

"Not Chaos, but Chaos friends," says Lemak in a low, angry voice.

His right hand twitches towards his dagger-axe, but pauses he see what the others do.  Maybe striking down one of the Lunars might break the others out of their magical constraints.

Norajia pauses when she recognises the Lunar uniforms, and approaches much more cautiously trying to see what is swinging in the tree. She pats the shoulder of Vorrik's body as if for reassurance.

Tuari looked at the laughing lunar troops, he was surprised they had come so close to the block and it's guardians.  He rode alongside Norajia to protect her if it became necessary.  "This is strong Hyena magic it seems" he said with a nod to Mabwe.

Mabwe snorts "We didn't come all this way... and Time, to stop and watch. If it is the tree we must go to then that is where we must go." and he walks on to the tree looking about for the source of this behaviour.

Picking your way through the hysterical soldiers, their laughter never ceasing but the forcefulness of their breath growing weaker, their voices raspy and hoarse, you move closer to the tree. You avoid them as you navigate, dragging the Dragonewt on the scale by Ondina and Lobber, with Vorrik's body draped over Modesty.

You see a simple standing swing that has been constructed, dangling from a branch of the holy tree. 
With her back to you, a young woman dressed in a vest and leggings, both made from stitched leather, swings lazily back and forth, singing a crude song in the Praxian tongue about zebras and their riders.

With Lobber and Tuari's bison pulling the lizard and the dragon scale, Lemak decides it's not worth trying ride around to the front of the woman at present.  Instead, he addresses her back.

"I am Lemak of the Silver Fleece clan.  Where is Shollak Sees-Far?  We were sent on a mission by him, and have returned."

He continues to maintain a watch on the laughing Lunars, in case any show signs of stopping their laughter, his hands ready to reach for his dagger-axe.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:02, Mon 08 Mar 2021.

In reply to Lemak (msg # 122):

The woman casts a quick scowl over her shoulder at Lemak, clears her throat dramatically, then repeats the chorus with more volume, holding the last note, before disengaging from the swing.
She removes her foot from the strap with exaggerated difficulty, and turns to face you.
She has dark skin, shoulder length black hair, and tattoos on her arms, neck and cheeks.
She looks you over, her gaze lingering a bit on Tuari and Norajia, and says, "Well, THAT was fast! Let me get this straight, you lot took a little jaunt from the Spike to the Dead Place and back... by way of Fonrit?!" 

Norajia swallows and glances towards Tuari, "Isn't that..." she says in an undertone. Her right hand makes a harmony sign in the small of her back. She looks confused at the mention of Fonrit.

Tuari looks from the woman to Norajia and back, he recognised her but they had never formally met.  "We encountered strange magic along the path, it slowed time so that what was no more than an hour to pass for us, years passed on the outside world.  I don't know if it was dragon magic or something else.  Has the White Bull sent you to wait for us?" Tuari asked curious about what had been going on.

"You said it, bison! The Boss sent me to fetch the little trinket you gang schlepped down here.
The Lunies seemed a little interested too. Right Lunies?"
 she calls out loudly, resulting in a renewed burst of sickening giggles from the incapacitated infantry men.
Stepping over toward the scale, around the crumpled quivering forms of the Lunar soldiers, she peers between Lobber and Ondina, "Ew, I don't think I want your scaly pet though, just the scale, please."
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:51, Tue 09 Mar 2021.

Lemak turns from the rude woman who has not named herself, to look at Norajia and Tuari.  He makes no move to deal with the dragon scale.  "Who is this?"

"This," Norajia licks her lower lip "is Elusu the Murderess, right hand woman of the White Bull"

She gestures left-handed at the Lunar soldiers

"...or some other powerful trickster who knows what Elusu looks like"

She waves at the others in turn,

This is Lemak, Klanth-and-Utumna, Tuari, Belina, Mabwe, Thangar, I am Norajia, and our companion Vorrik was killed yesterday